System and method for medical surveillance through personal communication device

A medical monitoring and surveillance system uses a server communicating with a general-purpose personal device running an application. The application may be downloadable. The application is configured by the server. The application configures the device to perform medical tests using the sensors, preexisting capabilities, and functionality built into the device. The device may be a cellular telephone with data communication and other functionality, a personal digital organizer, a portable entertainment device, or another similar personal device. The application reports the results of the medical tests to the server or a third party device. Various trigger events and associated tasks may be incorporated in the server or in the application residing on the device. A trigger event may occur, for example, in response to the test results meeting one or more predetermined criteria. Once a trigger event occurs, a task associated with the trigger event is performed.